~~ The attorney called me “dear” so I called him “sweetie.” He sounded surprised as he said, “Do you think that’s appropriate?” I said, “No, hon, I don’t. But if you call me ‘dear,’ what’s to stop me from ‘sweetie’-ing you?” “Ha, ha,” he laughed. “I didn’t even realize I did that. That’s embarrassing, isn’t it?”

~~ On September 19, the paralegal was quite adamant that I could not schedule a closing on September 30 because “the bank needs three full days’ notice.” While I protested again and again that September 30 was 11 days away, I couldn’t budge her. In fact, she got very testy, snarling, “Do you need me to say ’72 hours’ instead of ‘three days,’ so you get it?” I backed off (because you can’t talk numbers with a person who can’t count) and asked, “How’s October 1?” It was perfectly fine with her.

~~ I hadn’t been to a Mets’ game all season, so we tried to remedy that this week. However, a pair of boonie-level tickets, $20 for parking (we use a lot ever since the day I fell over one of those mental stanchions while evading traffic on the way back to our freebie spot), and the cost of my husband’s food (it’s the only reason he accompanies me to a sporting event) totaled well over $100. So I rationalized away my disappointment, thinking that it’ll be a chilly night, we’ll be surrounded by Giants’ fans, and the pitching matchup wasn't predicting a Mets’ win. Still, I know full well that when you have a chance to go, and don’t, you run the risk of missing something great. And boy, did I miss a fantastic 9th inning comeback! I need to find the bucks to be in the ballpark in 2014.

~~ During a discussion on social media concerning the tragic Navy Yard slayings, one man insists that you can’t restrict access to guns under any circumstances because it’s his Constitutional right to arm himself with enough firepower to efficiently mow down an entire workplace or elementary school. Moreover, please, don’t even try to talk to him about it, because “liberals don’t understand the Constitution.” Shouldn’t someone note in the histories of Justices Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Louis D. Brandeis (and many other “liberals” judges, lawyers, historians, and academics) that some gun-toting dude in Arizona actually has a better grasp than all these scholars?